If you missed the call, do not feel bad. Half the Knicks bench missed it too, until the whistle blew and they realized Karl-Anthony Towns had just been charged with an offensive foul on contact that was not really contact.
In the second quarter of Game 4, KAT drove into the paint and brushed past Victor Wembanyama. Wembanyama flopped backward like he had been hit by a truck. The whistle went the Spurs’ way.
Mike Brown was furious on the sideline. The Knicks crowd booed. The replay made it look even worse, with Wembanyama clearly initiating the contact and selling the fall.
Welcome to the new Wembanyama. He has spent the entire Finals adding flopping to his repertoire, and the league is letting him get away with it.
This is the part of his game nobody talked about in his rookie year. He was always a defensive force and a freakish offensive talent, but the veteran tricks were not there yet. Game 4 was the most polished version of his ability to draw fouls.
The KAT foul was the most obvious example, but it was not the only one. He drew a similar call on Jalen Brunson earlier in the game and got into Mitchell Robinson’s head enough to draw a flagrant. The Spurs ran him in lineups designed to put pressure on Knicks fouls all night.
Mike Brown finally lost it after the game. He pointed to the disparity in fouls and the fact that the Spurs shot more free throws despite being on the road. Knicks fans, who never need much encouragement to complain about officiating, were already in full meltdown mode online.
The league office tends to walk back blatant flop calls in retrospect, especially in Finals games. There is a real chance Wembanyama gets a flopping warning or a small fine for what he did to KAT. That is a tiny price to pay if it gets a star Knicks player in foul trouble in the second quarter of an elimination-stakes game.
From the Spurs perspective, this is just smart basketball. If the officials are going to reward acting, you might as well act. Wembanyama is finally figuring out how to use his size to draw calls instead of just chasing blocks, and that is going to make him even more terrifying long term.
From the Knicks perspective, they have to teach KAT to absorb that kind of contact without giving the officials anything to call. He cannot pick up cheap fouls in the first half of must-win games. He is too important to the offense to spend extended stretches on the bench.
This is the modern NBA. Stars get the benefit of the doubt. The bigger the stage, the more obvious the calls get. Wembanyama is the biggest star on a Finals floor outside of maybe Jalen Brunson, and the whistles are going to follow him as long as he keeps selling them.
For one night, it almost worked. The Knicks just happened to come back from 29 down and win anyway.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
